My education

I have always fancied myself an autodidact, even though I was more efficient when I was taught via the standard lecture pedagogy.  Since I have not been on campus in quite a few years, and my focus for my education is much too varied for a degree program.  No such thing as a masters in polymath-ology.  So, I have taken it upon myself to teach myself what I want to learn.  I have been pretty unsuccessful so far, but I have found a way to do this, after my volleyball season had ceased. 

The new method is to immerse myself in the readings and do it the slow and gradual way.  I go to the coffee shop or Border's and put on the headphones.  Then I sit and read, for an hourm two hours, how ever long I can read before I have to go somewhere.  It has been fruitful so far.

My standing list right now is kind of varied and probably too big to be very efficient, but I am plugging away. 

My list right now:

• Hermann Hesse:Pilgrim of Crisis by Ralph Freedman.
• How to read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren.
• On Liberty and Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill.
• Great Books by David Denby.
• How to Live or a Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell.
• Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers by Avner Ash and Robert Gross. 

I have always been a great fan of Hesse's writing.  So it is natural that I get interested in his biography.  Especially in how he came to believe what he believes.

The Adler and Van Doren book is a revisit of a classic.  Just a reminder on how to read effectively.

John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is the key piece of writing for Liberalism.

The Denby book is actually my way of cheating.  Denby gives a rather short synopsis of his second time reading the Great Books at Columbia.  But he also gives a personal reflection on each book and the place these books have in today's intellectual environment.  He also takes on the objections to the list and the emphasis on western, male authors in the list.  I am finding it more interesting than I thought.

The book on Montaigne is a new one, which gives us another take on Montaigne's essays, i.e. as it applies to living.

Finally, the book on symmetry is a pretty hard slog.  Not being a mathematical slouch, this book really knocks you back a bit and jumps straight into Groups, transformation and representation.

Of course, I am also doing some recreational reading.  I have two Inspector Montalbano mysteries, an Inspector Alan Banks mysteries, and the usual magazines waiting for me.

Of course, the volleyball season has to start now.